360 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



ORDER 123. PANDANEJE. 



Small dioecious trees or shrubs, spadices clothed with leafy 

 spathes; flowers small, covering the whole spadix, perianth none, 

 stamens numerous, ovary free t or united with those of contig- 

 uous flowers; fruit a round mass of united woody or fleshy 

 drupes. 



PANDANUS, characters as abrove. 



1. P. fascicularis (P. odoratissimus, D.). The screw pine. 

 A large cactus-like shrub, with long sword-shaped sharply- 

 toothed spinous leaves, growing round the stem in 3 spiral rows. 

 The flowers, consisting apparently of innumerable threads, grow 

 on a spadix 3 or 4 inches long, enclosed within large leaf-like 

 bracts ; fruit nearly round, something like a pineapple. Kevri, 

 Metki, bovdaga : in Sanscrit poetry Ketdka. 



Sandy places near the sea in the Konkan and elsewhere. " Through- 

 out the hotter moister parts of India, and much planted for fences " 



(jr.). 



This is a well-known and widely-spread species, easily recogniz- 

 able ; many nses for various parts of it are found in the South Sea 

 Islands. In Mauritius it grows 40 or 50 feet high, and is cultivated 

 for the leaves, from which sugar bags are made. Kirby. There is 

 one in the palm house at Kew trying hard to get through the roof. 



" The tender white leaves of the flowers (called spathes by H.), 

 chiefly those of the male, yield the most delightful fragrance ; of all 

 perfumes it is by far the richest and most powerful " (London). Roots 

 are sent out from many parts of the stem, as in some of the man- 

 groves, and look like artificial props. 



* P.furcatus. " A large spreading bush, pretty much like the last, 

 but with large compound fruit of an oblong shape, drupes cuneate, 

 crowned with an incurved, polished, sharp-forked spine" (-D.). 

 " Spathes inodorous, golden-yellow " (?.) 



Between Belgaum and Ram Ghaut (D.) ; but H. has no Western hab- 



ORDER 124. AROIDE-E. Arums. 



Perennial herbs with radical leaves, or scandent shrubs. 

 Flowers sessile on a spadix, which is enclosed in a spathe, 

 perianth none, or of scales ; male flowers with numerous anthers 

 on the upper part of the spadix, females with sessile ovaries on 

 the lower part, and often neuter flowers between. 



A large order, easily known by the spadix, which conveys no par- 

 ticular idea of flowers, more or less enclosed in the spathe. The 

 single English species, " Lords and ladies," is one of the commonest 

 of wild flowers. The* tubers of many of them produce nutritious 

 starch or sago. I am not able to give H.'s tribal distinctions, but 

 group such genera as I find possible. 



